Siren's Song

by Trish Albright

  The man turned, “What the—!”

  He was dead instantly. She ripped the knife out of his throat as Birdie made sure the other two never awoke. A cold chill went through her, but she proceeded, arming herself with the weapons Birdie had gathered, then getting down to work. She was nearly done rigging the dynamite next to the gunpowder when she heard a shout of outrage on deck. Paxton reacted according to plan.

  “Birdie, help me with the cannon.” They had released one cannon from its mount and repositioned it.

  Footsteps alerted them to danger. “Captain wants everyone on—hey!”

  Alex turned and released the knife. The man fell and Birdie dragged him to the side. She reclaimed the knife, blocking the image of death from her mind. They could hear the men scrambling on deck above them, Paxton in a fury. It was time. Alex stretched her back, ignoring the tearing of fragile skin that had already tried to heal. She needed to be loose.

  “Hurry and help Ilu with the boats. We only have two left after Salé. Release them both. So there’s no escape.” With a premonition, she grabbed his arm. He looked back in the shadows. “Birdie,” she ordered, “as soon as you hear the first blast, help Emma to the boat. If she doesn’t jump, throw her. If something happens, you’re the only one who can navigate the others to Las Palmas. Promise you’ll do that.”

  “I’ll see you on the boat, Captain.”

  “Promise you’ll do it.”

  “I promise,” Birdie murmured, his voice thick with worry. She told him one more thing, for Joshua. Just in case. That was when Birdie got scared.

  She winked to reassure him. Then she gave her last vital instruction in a tone Birdie would someday describe as the typically cocky Stafford voice.

  “Start counting.”

  Paxton was yelling madly when Birdie reached the deck. He wanted them all accounted for. The crew gathered, some stumbling onto the deck. Ilu slid from his nest and silently moved toward the bow, killing one nosey sailor on his way. While Paxton had the crew near the bow, Ilu, Birdie, and Emma were aft, pushing a boat over the side. Someone caught the movement and shouted a warning. A gunshot sliced the air, and Birdie threw Lady Emma over the side before she had a chance to think. Birdie turned at the sound of danger. Falco lifted a sword above his head just as Birdie finished counting in his head. Birdie waved at him, surprising Falco.

  A cannon blasted through the frame of the ship, tossing Falco off balance. There was a cry from the crew. When Falco regained his footing, Birdie was gone. He turned back to see a fire crawling up the deck. Falco watched in dismay as a trail snaked to the surface, then split into two directions, one parting up to the sails. The crew panicked. The wind, which had been nonexistent earlier in the day, seemed to softly blow the flames, billowing fire into sails. An acrid mixture of ether and kerosene wafted through the air.

  On the deck below, Alex finished her trail of kerosene up the opposite ladder. They would be here any second to see the damage. The ship was going down. They just didn’t know it yet.

  Ilu was already in the boat and reached with a paddle toward Emma. He pulled her out of the water and over the side of the boat, followed by Birdie, who was right behind. The fire on ship preoccupied the crew more than their escape did, but a few gunshots seemed too close for comfort. Birdie grabbed Ilu when he started to rapidly paddle away from the ship, but Ilu had his orders too.

  “Wait!” Emma panicked. “Where’s Alex?”

  An explosion cut short the question, throwing her backward in the boat. Shouts grew aboard the ship but faded against the increasing roar of fire.

  “My girl! Go back! I ain’t leaving her, you bastard!” Birdie cried at Ilu. He knew Alex better than anyone. He bent over, holding his stomach, his heart aching, his eyes straining in the night for some sign of her.

  “Dear God,” Emma prayed, looking toward the fiery ship for some sign of her friend escaping. “Dear God.”

  The light alerted Joshua. They’d had the ship in sight most of the evening, slowly catching up with it. Then he saw the first blast light the darkness. Heard the explosion.

  “Damn!” Samuel was out on the deck. He snapped orders to Joshua’s crew that brooked no argument. Samuel’s urgency only increased Joshua’s worry. He had his scope out when Samuel reached him, yelling. “She’s blowing up the damn ship!”

  Samuel couldn’t watch. He buried his head in his hands, waiting for what was to come.

  The second and final blast went off, starting a series of explosions in succession, creating a fiery display that shot up into the sky like a fireball.

  Joshua clutched the rail to remain standing.

  Mick joined him and gripped his shoulder. “They must be on a boat already.”

  Joshua swallowed painfully, knowingly, and slowly shook his head. “Someone had to be the trigger.” Alex would never let anyone else do it. He knew her too well.

  She was at the wrong end of the ship for her original escape plan to work. The first fuse didn’t take, and she had to run back down to light the path of destruction. Now Alex was counting the seconds before barrels of gunpowder exploded, completely obliterating her beloved ship. This ship had been her sanctuary. Today it became her hell. She intended to reclaim it her own way.

  She climbed out of the hold to see Paxton and several others blocking her path. She released four knives in succession, and all hit their mark except the one meant for Paxton. He deflected it with a sweep of the rolled up carpet. She ran to the side to get around him, aiming to get the farthest from the explosion before she jumped.

  Bedlam surrounded her. Sails burned and men fell. Those who could swim leapt into the water. Midship, she was blocked by a crazed sailor, and a quick look revealed Paxton gaining on her. She swung aggressively with her knife and sliced through the man, blood spraying her face as she pushed him between herself and Paxton. One sailor left between her and freedom. She threw her last blade, cleared the path, and ran.

  Something sharp hit her shoulder, knocking her from behind. She cried in pain, then stumbled to her knees, uncoiling her last weapon. A smaller explosion from below rocked the deck and caused Paxton to lose his balance. Desperate, she looked for an advantage. On her right, a possibility. With instinct born of practice, she flicked the whip hard. The end curled around the knife in a dead man’s chest. “Catch,” she breathed. Paxton stood, and grabbing the carpet and his sword he continued forward, hunting her, silhouetted by flames. She yanked hard, crossing the whip over her chest, hoping for directional control. “And release.”

  The knife flew back to her and landed with a powerful thump in the wood of the mast. She turned her head a fraction to see her face reflected in the blade, and swallowed hard.

  “That’ll do.”

  She stumbled to her feet, struggling to stand upright, wrenched the knife free and gripped it to fight. Shadow crossed light, alerting her. She spun with force as his sword came down. He was going to finish her.

  She struck first, ramming her blade into his heart.

  Their eyes met in the light of incinerating wood and sail. The wind caught at her hair, whipping it wildly around, like the flames about to devour them. He dropped the carpet.

  “On me, Paxton,” she said bitterly, “rests the end of days. The end of your days.”

  Paxton’s free arm went around her body, ripping further the sliced and raw skin on her back. His sword arm wobbled and finally his weapon dropped. Still, he could not let go. He could only stare.

  “You are the kelile,” he wheezed, his eyes shocked at the realization.

  “No.” Alex twisted the knife in his heart. “I’m not the kelile, Paxton.” She reached out and tore the chain from his neck, reclaiming the ancient brass astrolabe.

  “I’m the prophecy.”

  Emma screamed at the force of the last detonation. The ship’s destruction was a passionate display of fury and finality.

  Ilu jumped to cover them all. Wood and debris flew high, then slowly floated in the air as if suspend
ed, before landing with a fiery splash. The cries of men stopped. Eventually there was only the silent burning of the Sea Fire, as she sank to her final resting place.

  Emma called Alex’s name for hours afterward. At first she was hopeful, then desperate, then angry, then begging. She kept up her ritual until her voice was hoarse and her eyes blind from smoke and tears, but nothing she did made a difference. Her friend was gone.

  A cheer went up when they spotted the boat the following morning. As they got closer a quiet overtook again. Birdie was exhausted. His look of regret toward Joshua was enough for all of them to guess what had happened.

  Someone had helped Marcus on deck, and when Emma spotted him she stumbled gratefully into his arms, her blonde hair nearly black with soot, her eyes red, her spirit destroyed. He held her tightly, tucked under his chin while her body shook wretchedly with a mixture of relief and heart-wrenching sorrow. He watched the others come aboard, knowing already that Alexandra wasn’t among them.

  They searched the wreckage for hours, finding few remains save bodies, debris, the occasional barrel, and the whip. Emma asked them to retrieve it. She would keep it she told them, promising Marcus that some day she would explain why. They decided any survivors would head toward nearest land, several days away. That’s where Alex had directed Birdie. But no one expected survivors. “ ‘If anything happens, I’ll meet you there,’ ” Birdie repeated. She had said it with a confident grin, knowing all the time, that she wouldn’t be meeting him anywhere.

  Still, Birdie thought, as he recounted the details to her loved ones, if anyone could survive, she would find a way. He wanted more than anything to give hope to the men sitting across from him. It was not easy, but he gave them every detail, including how she had been whipped, and each word Paxton taunted her with regarding their father’s death.

  “I heard her,” Stephen said. He looked at the others. He would bet they had too. It had been a call for help, or justice. He had thought he was hearing things, but the time that Birdie described and the time he thought he heard the cry matched. Samuel merely looked at him as if to say “be quiet.” Even Joshua looked away. No one wanted to admit to that strange moment on the water. Stephen closed his mouth. It was the stuff of legends and superstition.

  “It was like she died in that moment.” Birdie put a hand back up to his eyes. “It broke my own heart. Paxton was ruthless. ’Twas nothing a child should ever hear. She made a choice then. I saw it. She was going to kill them all, even if she died doing it.”

  Stephen refused to believe any of it. “She’s a good swimmer. She could have found some debris. And what about the other boats aboard?”

  “We released them, so’s the crew would have no escape,” Birdie confided, dabbing at his eyes. “And the others we dropped in Salé.”

  “Is there anything else?” Joshua hadn’t spoken much. His voice seemed controlled, but had a taut edge. “Did she have no message for me?”

  Birdie looked down, guiltily. He debated repeating her parting words, for they had been telling the moment she’d said them.

  “Yes?” Joshua waited, eyes sharp.

  “Her last words to me … they were for you.” Birdie clasped his hands and took a breath. The man deserved the truth. It may be the only peace he would get.

  “She said,” he swallowed painfully, “ ‘Tell the duke I’m sorry.’ ”

  Joshua drew in a sharp breath.

  Birdie wept. “Aye, she knew it. She knew what she was going to do.”

  Matthew stared out the portal to the sea unwilling to believe it had taken another loved one.

  Stephen leaned his forehead against the cool cedar wall of the cabin. “She must have had an escape plan. She wouldn’t leave us. She wouldn’t do this. It’s too …” He closed his eyes, whispering, “It’s too unbearable.”

  Samuel knew that any of them would have done the same thing their sister had done. It was in their blood. They wouldn’t risk the life of a friend or crew, especially not if it was their responsibility as captain to protect them. His sister had been a Stafford through and through. Just like their father. If only she had known it.

  Joshua shook his head. They all thought she was dead. He refused to believe it. He hated them all at this moment. He even hated Alex. He wanted to get drunk and find oblivion. Every logical thought said she was dead. She couldn’t have survived. Even she knew she wouldn’t survive, else why give him that message? But until he saw her body for himself, he would not give up. Not if it took his last breath.

  “She’s not dead.” He spoke quietly, then with more certainty. “She wanted to kill that bastard, Paxton, but she’s too damn stubborn to die in the ocean she’s so fond of.” He grabbed his scope. “I intend to find her.” It was uncomfortably silent. “With or without your help.”

  He went back on deck to continue the search. One by one, the others followed.

  Alex remembered her last moments on the Sea Fire vividly. She had become something she never thought she would be. Ruthless.

  Her eyes had locked with Paxton’s. His wide. With shock. A knife in his heart. Understanding too late what she was capable of. What she was willing to risk.

  She watched, as he dropped to his knees, and crumpled over the carpet where it had unrolled at his feet. The woman’s hand reached out across the waves.

  His destiny. Not hers. She turned away. Done.

  And then she ran.

  Alex ran like her life depended on it because she knew it did. She was surrounded by flames, but she ran anyway. Through them when necessary. She kept moving, knowing water was on the other side. It hadn’t taken more than eight steps to leap onto the edge. Her legs pushed off the deck with all her might. They were still spinning midair when she stretched toward freedom, her clothes partially on fire, making a path to the water. An explosive roar sounded off behind her and she saw the reflection of her body above the water before slamming into the cold depths of the ocean.

  She struggled in desperation against the weight pressing down on her. Dark. Cold. No matter how hard she breathed, she couldn’t seem to get any air. She panicked at the familiar dream, only to realize it wasn’t a dream. Her arms stretched out, reaching blindly in the darkness uncertain as to which way was up. What had she done? Dear God, what had she done? She had destroyed it all. Everything she lived for. All for revenge.

  She should have done it all for love.

  Alex relaxed her body in the water, her struggles only impeding her. She unbuckled the leather knife belt weighing her down. Icy water washed around her, the burning of salt on the wounds of her back eventually numbing it into only a tight awareness. She floated in the water, listening. She had never been afraid of the water before. All her friends were here. A familiar sound encouraged her. Whales singing. Miles and miles away. Or maybe it was just her imagination. The whales were searching for land as well, but to avoid it. Slowly her body floated. She found her direction.

  A vague light in the darkness glimmered through the deep Atlantic water. She kicked her legs forcefully, one arm stretching upward, reaching for air.

  She cut the surface sucking in hard, gasping with desperate, life-giving breath.

  The force of the explosion had tossed Alex farther away from the ship than she realized, but also safely away from the debris that continued to fly in all directions. Her head hurt, her skin burned everywhere, and her fingers cramped with cold, still clutching the astrolabe, its chain wrapped thrice around her good hand. For some reason she was alive. She wondered for how long.

  Undulating waves brought her up and down in the ocean as she floated, looking for signs of life. On the upside of one wave she spotted something, a shadow afloat, barely lit by the flame of her beloved ship. Its shape was familiar. She looked back once more, nothing visible past the flames. There was an eerie crack of wood that echoed loudly, then new flames shot to the sky. That life was past. She turned again to the shadow floating away. It had drifted far from the ship. She swam with the current to catc
h it, her body protesting every movement, but her will forcing her to not give up.

  It seemed an eternity before she succeeded. Alex laughed with delirium as she touched the wood. With no one to hear, she released a pained cry as she attempted to hoist her body over the side of the empty boat. It was almost too much. Finally, she lay unmoving and exhausted, adrift in the ocean. Slowly she regained her focus, strengthened her resolve.

  She would not die out here.

  She pulled herself up. She had to feel for the side of the boat, unable to see much in her current state. There was one oar. She propped it up. Then, unwrapping the astrolabe, she rewrapped it to hang from the oar, turning it so the shiny side faced out, a reflective beacon should anyone be looking.

  With the very last bit of energy that she had left, she pulled in her breath and sang a song out to the whales. Then she collapsed, grateful that they still sang back.

  The crew of the newly christened Freedom listened in the night to the strange sounds, and noted their captain was pensive, his brows furrowing with concern.

  Koto, a dark, African man was their representative. He approached the captain and questioned humbly, “Captain, do we continue to the lights?”

  The man shook his head, listening again, closing his eyes as if to concentrate on the sound coming across the sea. Finally he redirected.

  “Southeast. Toward the song.”

  Koto swallowed nervously. He didn’t think any good could come from following strange sounds in the night, and it didn’t sound like any song he knew. Still, their new captain had saved them in Brazil. Freed them from bondage. And now he paid them like they were free men. They would follow him anywhere.

  The captain seemed to recognize Koto’s hesitation. He turned clear blue-green eyes on him that reflected the moonlight and spoke encouragingly.

  “It’s okay, Koto. It’s not a ghost. It’s a woman.”